


Secretary

by CallMeElle



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry Allen is Mr. Grumpy, F/M, I Don't Even Know, Out of Character, Secretary au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 12:35:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17162102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeElle/pseuds/CallMeElle
Summary: None of his fantasies could compare to this, could come even close. She was sideways in his lap, but her hands were planted on his shoulders. And her mouth was slanted on his, pressing against his. He felt the tip of her tongue on his lips and he opened for her. She licked into his mouth, nibbled at his lips. She tasted like vodka and heat and something faintly sweet, and Barry knew it was her flavor he wanted on his tongue for the rest of his life.





	Secretary

**Author's Note:**

> The secretary AU that absolutely nobody asked for.

The woman standing in front of him was not what he had been expecting.

Well, to be honest, Barry Allen was unsure of what he had been expecting when he’d placed the employment ad for a secretary on Indeed. He supposed there were a couple cliches he could have pulled from to confirm his conjectures. She could have been a little old lady, stern faced with perfectly coiffed gray hair, smelling of peppermint and bengay, scolding him about his life choices. Or, she could have been an overly made up blonde, her lips painted garishly red, buxom body poured into skintight cotton.

What he got was someone markedly _not_ cliche, though his reaction to her might have as well been the basis for every boss-secretary trope in existence. She was gorgeous, but Barry didn’t think that word could quite do her justice. She was short, at least a head shorter than him without the tall black heels she wore. Despite that, her legs were endless, delicate ankles that lead up to shapely calves and firm thighs. Well, he imagined they were firm by the way the pencil skirt hugged them and her round hips. A white silk shirt was tucked into the skirt and did a little more than hint at the deep curve of her and did a _whole_ lot in appreciating her cleavage. And he really wasn’t prepared for her face, improbably pretty: big brown eyes under twin arched eyebrows, the color of them dark like lust and earth; a cute button of a nose over blessedly full lips, the top a little bow shaped, the bottom one a bit plumper, the both of them making Barry’s breath come a little faster. Her black hair was a glossy sheet that hung past her shoulders and to top it all off, she had on fucking glasses. Barry had never had a glasses kink but he figured she herself was an entire kink he’d like to indulge in. Then, he stopped himself, because _what the fuck?_ She was there for a job.

“Mr. Allen?”

He blinked at her, her face scrunched up cutely, and maybe this wasn’t the first time she had tried to get his attention.

“Um, yes, sorry. Come on in.”

Across the room, his business partner, Cisco Ramon, watched on in amusement, an eyebrow ticking up when he caught Barry’s eyes. When they had placed the ad, they had agreed that Barry would be the one to interview potential secretaries. After all, he would have the most contact with whoever was chosen. Cisco was the behind the scenes man of AR Industries, a small start up that built technological equipment for various businesses. They’d even begun to dabble in mobile application building. It was Barry’s job to push product, to maintain contact with clients, and it had all started to become too much for Barry to handle on his own.

That brought them to the current moment, with Barry leading the woman through the door of an office space they rented at entirely too high of a price, over to his cluttered desk. He asked her to have a seat on the chair not being used to hold stacks of paper.

He watched her look around the room with appraising eyes, gaze sweeping quickly over the two large mahogany desks Barry’s parents had given them as a gift when they’d gone out on their own and the framed movie posters that Cisco insisted be a part of the decor. The rest of the large room was unimpressive and in a state of disarray: a couple file cabinets with drawers not fully closed, paper sticking out, and a mini kitchen complete with a medium sized fridge, a counter with a sink, a hot plate, and an older model coffee maker that was perpetually brewing coffee.

When she had finished her observation, she turned back to him and placed her hands primly in her lap. With that and the glasses, Barry faintly felt like _he_ was the one being interviewed.

“So, Ms...” he read her name from the printed response email she’d sent. “...Iris West. What do you know about tech?”

She hesitated, pulling her wine colored bottom lip into her mouth. He followed the gesture, quickly looking back into her eyes when he realized what he was doing.

“I know how to use my phone,” she supplied.

Barry stared at her.

Her cheeks flamed, turning a little red beneath the smooth tawny brown of her skin. She looked askance, ran a perfectly manicured hand through her hair, and then straightened her shoulders, looking back at him.

“Look, Mr. Allen…”

“Barry,” he interrupted, because suddenly he needed to know what his name sounded like coming from her mouth.

“Okay,” she drew the word out, the hint of a smile playing on her face.. “Barry…”

(Yes, he thought, just as melodic as had imagined.)

“...I don’t know anything about technology. I still don’t even know half the functions my laptop has.”

Barry titled his head as she continued.

“But I’m organized. I’m a planner. I take meticulous notes. I’m a good listener, I’m observant, plus I’m a fast learner. “

She leaned forward, awarding Barry _just_ a glimpse of supple looking flesh.

“And really,” she added, “I don’t know how you’ve been fairing without me.”

Barry felt the corners of his mouth tick up. “Oh?”

“Yeah. I mean look at this place.”

_Wait. What?_

“What?” Barry’s eyes bulged. “What’s wrong with this place?”

“Oh, nothing,” she quickly pacified. “Per say…”

“Excuse me?” His voice might have been a little snide.

“It’s just,” she plowed on. “With my help, we can turn this place around. Like, it’s beautiful, right?” She looked around again, this time in obvious disdain. Barry wondered if she thought he believed the crap she was spewing.

“But, with a little elbow grease, some paint,” she looked pointedly at the stack of papers in the seat next to her, “a proper filing system, I can have this office looking like a masterpiece.”

Barry was skeptical. She had insulted their baby.

“The lady’s gotta point,” Cisco said from his desk. “This place does look like crap.”

Barry frowned. “No, it doesn’t. It’s got...character.”

“Yes. Character.” Iris agreed.

Cisco snorted. Iris West leaned forward again, this time placing a hand on top of his, those brown eyes of hers latching on to his and holding him captive. She was closer and in that position, Barry could see the tiny flecks of gold in her irises and he could smell the scent of honeysuckle wafting from her skin. She licked her lips, the action much too slow to not be calculated.

“Please, Mr. Allen.” Her voice was softer, a hint of earnesty in the cadence. “Just give me a shot. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

He could feel the room getting smaller, the oxygen supply dwindling as she pleaded with him, the sound of her voice, her smell, her _mouth,_ making his head spin. He felt hot, wondered absently if his cheeks, his ears had turned pink, a sign of the haze he was currently living in. Her hand was warm on top of his, tiny compared, and he imagined the way it might feel running up his arm, down his chest, tapping a song of desire on his skin. What it might feel like if it dipped lower, unzipped his slacks, palmed him to hardness.

“Please, Mr. Allen,” she said again, and Barry ran his free hand over his face.

“People don’t tell you no, do they?”

The smile she gave him was dazzling, plump lips curving over straight white teeth, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

“No,” she shook her head. She practically jumped up, giddy.

“Right. Well, we’ll give you a call later in the week to finalize details and get the paperwork together. Start on Monday?”

“Absolutely.” She beamed at him again. “Thank you so much. I promise you won’t regret it.”

He watched her wave to Cisco and walk out of the room, eyeing her backside and the way the skirt draped lovingly over her plump derriere. Barry was a little more than 100% sure he was going to regret hiring her.

It was a while before either of them spoke and it was Cisco who broke the ice.

“That was interesting to watch,” he drawled, going back to whatever it was he was working on in the first place.

Barry grunted, hands reaching up to tug at his own hair in exasperation.

“And you were so helpful,” he said.

“It seemed like you were handling it.”

Barry grunted again before frowning down at the papers on his desk. His frown deepened as he looked at the desk through her eyes, at the papers scattered in manilla folders and stacked by client. He’d been a little proud of his system. He scratched his head.

“Oh yeah, and Barry?” Cisco called.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t fuck our new secretary.”

 

************

Iris’s transition into the fold was not an easy one. Never mind that Barry felt a faint warmth in his chest and a minute tightening of his pants every time she was near; a little sexual attraction he could handle. What he couldn’t tolerate was the fact that she kept _changing_ things. Barry was not adverse to change, despite what Cisco, or his parents, said. He did, however, appreciate things to be in a way that he knew and understood them. Those things were not Iris West.

On her first day, she came into the office pushing a leveled cart. On the top of the cart was a coffee machine, this one sleek and black, with knobs and spouts and buttons. There were other things on the cart: file folders and crates and two huge containers of paint with a roller. They had done all of the paperwork via phone and fax and email, so this was the first time that Barry had seen her since he’d watched her walk out of their office nearly a week ago.

“Good morning, Mr. Allen,” she chirped as she rolled the cart through the door. Today she was in another skirt and blouse combo, this time a blue skirt wrapping around her frame and a yellow silk button down that was a beautiful contrast to her flawless skin. Barry knew it was lame to think something like, “she reminded him of the sun,” but she _did,_ the way her eyes shone as she walked in with her cart, pumps clacking lightly on the hardwood.

“I thought I told you to call me Barry,” he said, because his brain wouldn’t think of anything else to say.

That went unacknowledged as she made a beeline for the kitchen area, promptly unplugging the coffee maker that had just started percolating and dumping the coffee into the sink.

“What the fuck?” His brain couldn’t think of anything else to say in that moment, either.

Her only reaction to the swear was a raised eyebrow.

“It’s a home coffee bar,” she explained. “It makes all sorts of stuff, cappuccinos, lattes, macchiatos.”

Barry didn't tell her that he thought she she should have left her home coffee bar at home.

“Does it make regular coffee?” he asked instead.

“Of course, Mr. Allen.”

“Well could you make me some? You poured out my coffee before I had even had a cup.”

“It probably wasn’t any good, anyway,” he heard her mumble under her breath.

He blinked, a bit startled.  “I’m sorry?”

“I said I’d get right on that for you, Mr. Allen.”

Barry was unsure of what had happened between the last time she was here and now, but something gave him the distinct impression that Iris West was fucking with him.

It was way too early for all that, so he just turned away from her and went to his desk to start work. Not ten minutes later, a piping hot cup of perfect black coffee was placed on his desk and when he turned to thank her, she was already bent over into the refrigerator. He had no idea what she was doing, but she was _bent over,_  her round ass on full display. He groaned lowly and turned back to his desk, grabbing the coffee and taking a huge swallow. It didn’t matter that the coffee burned his tongue. His entire body was aflame, anyway.

*****

On her third day, Cisco met him in the front of the building. He looked cool in the early morning sun, in gray pants and a printed button down, a pair of shades covering his chocolate brown eyes, his long hair pulled in a bun atop his head. The only thing out of order was the crate of papers he was holding.

“What’s going on?” Barry asked, stopping next to him, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his navy slacks.

“Iris is painting the office,” Cisco told him.

“What? Why?”

Cisco shrugged. “She says the office needs painting. She told me to give these files to you. Apparently, they’re clients you have meetings with next week to assess their needs and she wants you to review them. She doesn’t want you to inhale paint fumes so she says you should probably work at the coffee shop next door for a few hours.”

“Iris says? She does know we’re the bosses, right?”

“Of course, she does. She asked me last night if I would be okay with her making some changes around the office and I told her to go for it, as long as she didn’t hurt my movie posters.”

Barry didn’t let on that he was bothered by the fact that she hadn’t asked him, despite it having just been the two of them in the office yesterday while Cisco had been holed up in his vortex, creating gadgets for their clients.

“Plus, she showed me the color. It’s a nice dove grey. She said it’d go well with the posters and give the office a more professional look.”

“Iris has a lot to say,” Barry mumbled.

“Oh, don’t be bitter, Barry.” Cisco shoved the crate at him. “I’m going to work in the vortex today. Iris said we should be good to be back in the office by mid afternoon.”

“Right.”

Cisco gave him a hearty clap on the back before heading back inside the building. Barry just sighed and turned in the direction of the Starbucks.

*****

On the fifth day, Barry walked back into the office after lunch to find Iris moving furniture. In the moment, she was pushing his desk across the room, legs bent and bare feet on the floor. Her glasses were slipping down her nose.

“Iris!” he bellowed, because what in the _hell_? She startled to a standing position, eyes wide as she gaped at him. Then, as if just noting the yell, they narrowed at him as she pushed her glasses back into position and placed her hands on her hips.

“Mr. Allen, you’re back early.”

Barry took a look at his watch. It was 1:15. He was always back by 1:15.

“What are you doing, Iris?”

“Moving furniture,” she said, and the _obviously_ was implied.

“Yes, I see. I’d like to know why.”

“Well, I need a desk too, right? I mean I clearly can’t share with one of you. But, in order to make that work so the room is not super crowded, I have to rearrange it. Don’t worry, though. It’s gonna be great. 

And I ordered some partitions to give you and Cisco the appearance of privacy, and to make the front of the room look more like a receptionist area.”

It didn’t escape his notice that she called him Cisco.

“You ordered partitions?”

“And a small couch for the receptionist area.”

Barry’s jaw ticked.

“Cisco said we had it in the budget,” she told him.

“Cisco has no idea what’s in the budget.”

Iris faltered at that, her mouth pulling down. Absently, Barry noted the unfairness of her attractiveness, how it didn’t matter that she had painted the room without consulting him and had made financial decisions without checking with him and was making _changes_ without asking him, he still found himself staring at her all the time. He wasn’t even always sure if he particularly liked her, but he knew that he did like the glint in her eyes whenever she said anything to him and the smile (sincere or not, he still couldn’t tell) that she gave him every morning. The snark, the ‘Of course, Mr. Allen,’ he could do without, but in the deepest recesses of his mind, he could admit that even his name in that mocking tone was hot as hell coming from her mouth.

“Do we not have it?” she asked softly. She was looking up at him with those big brown eyes, seeming even smaller because her shoes were strewn across the floor and her pants didn’t add length to her legs like her skirts did and only her skin could look that nice under the garish light of the room’s fluorescent bulbs.

“Yeah, we do, just…” he ran a hand over his face, sighing heavily. “All money questions go through me, okay? Cisco would let you buy a zebra if you convinced him it’d somehow add to the decor.”

She nodded once, pieces of her hair falling from the knot on her head she’d fashioned with pencils.

“And the room?”

“You’re already doing it. You might as well continue.”

She beamed at him and Barry thought he might be about to have a heart attack.

“Thank you, Mr. Allen.”

“Call me Barry, Iris.”

“Of course, Mr. Allen.”

 

Later, Barry was in the vortex looking at some of the prototypes for new gadgets Cisco was working on when Barry heard a sharp cry from the office.

“Iris,” he breathed, running to the front. Iris was stepping down from a ladder when he rushed in, staring down at her pant leg. He followed her line of vision and saw that there was a long tear in her pants and that she was bleeding.

“Iris, are you alright?”

He got to her just as she was stepping onto the floor, grumbling down at her leg. She looked at him when he grabbed onto her arm, like she was confused at his presence.

“Iris, what…”

“I thought you were gone,” she said.

“No, I was in the vortex. Tell me what happened.”

“Well, I was putting one of the movie frames back up and I had to pull the file cabinet out to do it. And I guess I didn’t really inspect it when I was moving around earlier, but there is a jagged piece of it sticking out and on my way down, I cut my leg.”

“Damnit, Iris, I told you to let me help you.”

“I didn’t need your help. I had the gliders to move all the heavy stuff.”

He stalked away from her then, marching into the restroom to grab the first aid kit they kept under the sink.

“It’s just a cut,” he heard her call from the office. “It’s not even deep.”

He waited until he was in front of her again before he answered.

“Maybe not, but it’s a cut from an old piece of metal and you haven’t earned sick time off yet if you get an infection.” He pointed at his desk. “Sit down.”

“Mr. Allen, you don’t have to…”

“Sit down, Iris.”

She rolled her eyes but hopped onto the desk, wincing when her leg hit the wood. He made no comment.

The room was silent as Barry grabbed his chair and took a seat, before wrapping his fingers around her ankle. She jolted when he did and Barry snatched his hand back.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, biting at her lip.

“No, I… is it okay if I..?”

He made to reach for her again and Iris nodded, this time allowing him to touch her ankle and place her foot in his lap. Her skin was warm to his touch and his breath hitched. He rolled her pants leg up, careful not to let the fabric touch the wound. She was right; it wasn’t deep, but the cut was enough that it might leave a scar.

He moistened a cotton ball with peroxide from the kit and meticulously cleaned the wound, one hand holding her steady, by the meat of her calf. This was probably the least sexy thing Barry could be doing right now, but in the silence of the office, with his hands on her and the sweet scent of honey in the air, Barry found that it hard to focus.

If Iris thought that cleaning the wound took longer than it should have, she didn’t say. Instead, she waited patiently for him to dress it in neosporin and a white bandage and when he finished, she didn’t take her foot off of his lap. Barry kept his hand on her calf.

“Thank you, Mr. Allen,” she spoke, after a moment, after he caught her eyes in the silence and his brain stopped functioning. She had pushed her glasses onto her face and Barry found that there were hints of caramel to go with the gold flecks in her mocha eyes. And without the lipstick staining her mouth, her lips were faintly pink but still impossibly full. And he knew she caught him staring by the way she ran her tongue across the top bow before pulling the bottom one into her mouth and then gently pulling her leg from his grasp.

“Thank you, Mr. Allen,” she said again, but she didn’t move any further away from him.

“Why won’t you call me by my name?” he suddenly needed to know.

“I do.”

“No. You call me Mr. Allen. You’ve never once referred to Cisco as Mr. Ramon.”

“Because,” she argued. “Cisco’s a Cisco and you’re a,” she waved a hand. “a Mr. Allen.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, Cisco’s cool. And he’s nice. On the other hand, you wear ties and your hair is always all over the place so you look stressed all the time. And you grumble.”

“I do not grumble,” he grumbled.

Iris stared at him.

“Okay, fine. Sometimes I grumble.”

She seemed pleased that he admitted it, giving him an easy smile.

“You’d grumble too if your business partner’s only focus was on hiding in his playroom and leaving every other part of the business to you.”

“Isn’t that why you hired me? Let me help make things easier.”

He wanted to ask her just how on earth she was making anything easier, what with the skirts and the eyes and the smart aleck comments that made him smile just as much as they irritated him. Instead, he asked her:

“What are doing here so late, anyway?”

She shrugged.  “I was just trying to get as much finished as I could before the partitions and my desk get here on Monday.”

Barry hummed, looking around the room. He could see the changes she had made. The walls were nearly glistening with the new coats of paint, the gray a nice, even backdrop for the colorful movie poster around the room. It surprisingly didn’t clash with the mohagoney of the desks.

“I’ll put that one back up.” He pointed to the poster half hanging off the wall behind the file cabinet. “And I’ll order another file cabinet.”

“Two file cabinets,”

Barry’s face furrowed. “Why?”

Her face was the picture of innocence. “They have to match, right?”

“Right,” he said, because it was true, what he’d said when he first met her. People couldn’t tell her no.

Barry made quick work of the poster, careful of the file cabinet. After, they gathered their things to leave. Barry waited until Iris had grabbed her purse before he locked the office and they walked out together.

“So why were you here so late?” she asked him as they walked out onto the sidewalk.

“Was just looking at some of the models that Cisco has been working on.”

“Hmm,” she hummed. “Is there a Mrs. Allen or a future Mrs. Allen waiting at home for you?”

He turned to look at her, the question unexpected. They were at her car, his hands in his pockets as she held her keys in hand. He didn’t know what her expression meant, not the warm look in her eyes as she seemed to assess him, giving him a long, slow once over that did not match the way too casual tone of her question.

“No,” he shook his head. “No wife. No girlfriend.”

She hummed again, then gave him a nod. She reached out and straightened his tie, patting lightly at his chest when she thought it was sufficiently straight. His stomach clenched under her hand and he titled his head as he looked down at her.

“Iris…”

“Good night, Mr. Allen.”

He stood there until she drove away, for a while after, and Barry shook his head. Yeah, he thought, someone had definitely sent her there to kill him.

************

“Iris, where are the Queen files?”

She looked up from her desk when he called to her, glasses fixed on her face, her fingers poised on her laptop keyboard. It had been ten days since she had started working for them. Ten days of her in those glasses and the blouses and the _Good Morning, Mr. Allen._ Barry liked to think they had come to some kind of unspoken truce. Once her desk and the partitions and the new file cabinets had come, she had been like a kid in a candy store, transferring and organizing files. He should have known that it wasn’t going to last.

When he’d gotten in that morning, she had already been there, making coffee, wearing red. He had stood in the doorway for a long moment, watching the way the dress caressed her curves, how the material fitted to her frame, the way the color looked like fire on her skin. He had tugged at his collar, but the picture that had planted in his mind--her bent over the counter, Barry pushing the dress slowly up her thighs, Barry sinking into her from behind--could not be abated by a little tie loosening. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that ogling his secretary was against some rule so he was glad when Cisco walked into the office, startling him and catching Iris’s attention. Iris had waved cheerfully at Cisco, said hello to Barry, and gone back to fiddling with the coffee maker. Cisco had made eye contact with Barry, shaking his head in mock disgust.

“I told you not to…”

“I’m not!” Barry had exclaimed, but that picture stayed with him a while.

Now, Barry was reminded that Iris West had actually come to make his life hell and one part of that was messing with his files.

“They’re in the file cabinet,” she said.

“Where in the file cabinet? I’ve been looking for them all morning. They aren’t with any of the other multimedia files.”

“No,” she replied, “because they’re under Q.”

“What?”

“As I was transferring files,” she started patiently, “I noticed that your organizing system made no sense. Why organize by company type? Some companies delve into multiple avenues and then where do those go?”

“Together.”

“No.” She shook her head. “That makes no sense. Organizing alphabetically is the ideal way.”

“No, Iris. it should…”

“Hey hey hey,” Cisco chanted as he interrupted them. “Let’s not with the bickering today. Iris, the new filing system is amazing. Barry, the Queen files are under Q.”

Barry grunted.

Iris smiled.

“So now we’re going to work, on separate sides of the room, and then after we’re going to go out for drinks.”

“Drinks?” Iris and Barry said at the same time.

“Yes,” Cisco affirmed. “Because we need some team building and what better way to do that than over drinks?”

Barry thought that going out for drinks with Iris in the red dress was about as good a plan as agreeing to hire her in the first place.

 

Jitters was surprisingly slow for a Friday afternoon so the three of them were able to get a table near the bar rather quickly. Cisco promptly ordered a round of tequila shots for the group.

“Really? Shots, Cisco?”

“If you had to work with you two, you would have ordered the shots first.”

Iris, who had not seemed to find offense with that comment, turned to Barry and instead gave him a grin, the one that only slightly lifted the corners of her mouth and he had begun to associate with nothing good.

“What, Mr. Allen? Can’t handle a little shot?”

He was saved from responding to that little quip because a waiter was placing shots in front of them, complete with salted rim and a small bowl of sliced limes.

“I can, I just..”

He paused at the challenge in her eyes.

“You just…?”

That smile was still there, the challenge. And the way she was leaning made her hair perfectly frame her face and pushed her breasts up and _god,_ there was _no way_ she wasn’t doing all this to drive him fucking bat shit.

“Fine,” he conceded and she let out a little “whoop,” grinning at the two of them. Cisco toasted to tequila and they threw the shots back. Her pink tongue darted out to lick remnants of salt from her mouth, her lipstick as red as that goddamn dress. She excused herself to the restroom and Barry glanced at Cisco.

“You’re gonna do it, aren’t you?” Cisco asked, shaking his head. “You’re gonna sleep with our secretary.”

He definitely wanted to, he thought.

“First,” Barry said. “You keep saying that like I’m some kind of pervert who just sleeps with all the women I meet.”

Cisco didn’t say anything. Barry rolled his eyes. You have exactly two one night stands and suddenly you’re a man slut.

“And second, you’re operating under the assumption that she wants to sleep with me.”

Cisco stared at him for several beats. “Oh, wait, you’re serious?”

“Cisco, she won’t even call me by my name. Plus she’s a little bit condescending, despite the fact that _I_ am her boss.”

“Oh, please, Barry. Hell, I get hot watching you two in a room together.”

That was the end of their conversation because Iris walked back up to the table.

“More drinks, boys?”

*****

They spent the next couple hours being cordial, getting to know one another a little more. They talked about Iris’s detective father, Joe, and Wally, her brother who was an engineering student at Central City U. Cisco handed her a card to give to him. They discussed Cisco’s estranged brother and his parents who didn’t talk to him much but still left huge quantities of tamales in his office. Barry told her about his parents, warm and loving, whom he still had dinner with every Sunday. They talked about Cisco's girlfriend too, Gypsy she was called, and Barry voiced that he thought they should all get together soon.

As if their talking about her had conjured her, Cisco got a call from Gypsy, asking him to come home to deal with a broken water valve.

“Well maybe we should go too,” Barry suggested, watching Cisco walk out of the door. Jitters was getting busier too anyway and Barry wasn’t exactly in the mood for the college crowd that usually frequented Jitters on Friday nights. “Besides, there are a few things I need to finish up at the office so I’m ready for my meetings on Monday.”

“Um, okay,” she seemed disappointed but Barry wondered if that was only wishful thinking. After he paid for their drinks, noting that Cisco conveniently left him with the bill, they went their separate ways.

Barry walked slowly back to the office, hands in his pockets. He’d been thrown all off since Iris had come to the office, the emotional whiplash he had been experiencing since she’d walked into his life causing him  to miss out on work. He thought about what Cisco had said and wondered if that were true, if she was going a little bit crazy about him too, but he dismissed that notion. She might, for unknown reasons, want to make his life hell, but that didn’t mean it was because she wanted to have sex with him.

When he got to the office, he sat at his desk after pulling the Palmer files from the P section, and got to work. He didn’t know how long he had been there when he heard the door being pushed open. He looked up to see Iris in the door. She looked just a little unsure as she stood there, a brown paper bagged bottle in her hand. He had only turned on the light over his desk so she was bathed in a soft glow.

“Iris.”

“I, uh, thought you might like some company while you worked.” She held up the bottle. “I brought vodka.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Come in.”

She did, slowly, her heels tapping a soft cadence on the floors. There was something fragile about this mood. It was night, the room only lit by the faint yellow light. There was the muted sounds of laughter from outside, but inside of that office, there was but the gentle hum of the refrigerator, the steady sound of their breathing. Barry thought that any sudden move could mess it up. He didn’t know why she was there, but he was quiet as she grabbed her desk chair and rolled over to him.

“I hope you don’t mind that I showed up.” She stopped the chair on the side of the desk and sat down. “I didn’t have any other plans and I thought maybe you’d like a break. You and Cisco work so hard and I, uh…”

Her words seemed to get stuck in her throat and she combed a strand of hair behind her ears with her fingers.

“Anyway, I brought vodka.”

She pulled the bottle from the bag with flourish and Barry chuckle at her antics.

“Why not?” he said. “I like vodka. I was finishing up anyway.”

“Excellent.” Her smile could melt snow.

“I’ll grab us some cups,” Barry volunteered.

“Nope. No need.” She toed her shoes off and settled into her chair. Her legs dangled over the floor and Barry wanted to make a joke about her height, but there was something too intimate about knowing that her toes were painted a soft pink and then he couldn’t find his voice to speak anyway.

She uncapped the bottle and took a drink, her lips covering the mouth of the bottle, and his dick twitched at the image it evoked.

“So I find it hard to believe you didn’t have any plans,” Barry said, after he had taken a drink himself.

She gave a shrug that was too casual to not mean anything. “Things have been really quiet in my life lately.”

She took the bottle back, took another swig.

“Do you have a lot of friends?” He wanted to know.

“Not really. There’s Linda. She and I have been friends since college. But she’s recently started dating a new guy so she’s still in the honeymoon phase. I don’t see her as much.”

They did that a while, passing the bottle back and forth, making some conversation but mostly not. He could feel the liquor start to warm his insides, start to make the world around him just slightly fuzzy.

“What about you?” She asked, after some time. “Why are you in your office working all night instead of, I don’t know, on a date or something?”

He inclined his head. “It’s been a while since I’ve been on a date. We kind of just really got this business off the ground, so my focus has been on that.”

“But Cisco manages to have a girlfriend.”

“Gypsy’s amazing. He knew he had to step up or he’d lose her.”

“And there was no one for you to step up for?”

He shook his head.

“Why not?”

He glanced at her. She sat in the chair in front of him, her bare legs crossed at the ankle, her dress bunched up around her thighs. Her fingers were wrapped around the neck of the bottle. She was a vision before him: the red dress and the red flush of her skin from the alcohol and her red lips, pouty and full in the muted light.

  
“Tell me,” she urged.

  
The liquor was making his own body languid, loose limbed as he stretched out beside her.

  
“I don’t know,” he told her. “I don’t like to do things halfway and I guess I’ve never found someone I wanted to go all the way with.”

  
She seemed to mull over that, processing the information.

  
“There was a guy that I had thought I wanted to go all the way with,” she said quietly, after a moment. “I thought that all the way up to the day he proposed.”

  
She put the bottle to her lips and took a swallow. She gave Barry a small smile.

  
“Eddie was nice and kind and beautiful, but he didn’t...”

  
Voices sounded outside and she paused until they were gone and the mood was restored.

  
“He didn’t make me feel like I was floating or like I couldn’t breathe when he was around. We never even fought, you know, and something about that seemed to lack passion.”

  
He couldn’t imagine having Iris and losing her. Even with just his position in her life, he didn’t know what he’d do without her making him coffee every morning, and reorganizing flies when he didn’t want her to, and fixing his ties after he’d been tugging at them while looking at invoices and bank statements. He didn’t know what he’d do.

  
So he definitely could not think about what it must have been like to wake up with her beside him, warm and pliant and half naked. What it must have been like to pull her to him and palm her hips and kiss her, tasting her with lips and teeth and tongue. He couldn’t imagine all of that and then having to leave. He wouldn’t have been able to go. So he didn’t know what made him say it aloud but he was entirely truthful when he told her,

  
“He must have been devastated to lose you.”

  
She tilted her head in question.

  
Before he answered, he gestured to the vodka and she passed it over. He took a long drink, wincing at the taste.  He placed the bottle on his desk.

  
“What do mean?” She prodded when he took too long to respond.

  
“Just,” He tugged at his hair. “Just what I said.”

  
“You mean that?” she asked, addressing the implication of his words.

  
“Oh come on, Iris. You’ve got to know the effect you have on people.”  On him.

  
“But you don’t even like me.”

  
Barry let out an involuntary chuckle, the kind that came with confusion and exasperation and need, all of which Barry was feeling. He was hot from too much alcohol, off balance because she was around. His shirt seemed too small all of sudden.

  
“That’s not exactly true.”

“No?” Her expression turned thoughtful. She slid closer, just a little, until their knees were touching. “Then what’s with all the yelling?”

  
“You’re infuriating,” he said. “And you keep changing things.”

He twisted in the chair, this taking him even closer to her, just a little more. “But you are kind and snarky and smart. And you are...” he looked at her then and Barry thought he might pass out from the heat in her eyes.  
“You are the single most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my fucking life.”

  
“Mr. Allen.”  

Her voice was soft and he didn’t even mind that she didn’t say his name because this time it was a caress, a sweet taste on her tongue.

  
The room was heavy with tension, their breathing labored and loud in the quiet room. He didn’t know what to do, where to look, where to put his hands.

  
He wanted to kiss her, something he had been wanting to do since he saw her standing on the other side of their office door. He wanted to go home and lie in bed, drink water and think about Cisco telling him that he couldn’t sleep with her because she was their secretary and what would happen if it ended badly? He wanted to pull her in his lap and tongue a path down the side of her neck.

  
He would wonder later if it was the alcohol that had made her decision. Or if it was those nice things he had said about her. Or if it was just possible that she had been just as unsettled as he had for the past ten days. Either way, when she left her chair to settle herself atop him and then lean in to kiss him, Barry felt as if he hadn’t been living until then. Like he had just been going through the motions, half starving, half breathing, until that very moment.

  
  
None of his fantasies could compare to this, could come even close. She was sideways in his lap, but her hands were planted on his shoulders. And her mouth was slanted on his, pressing against his. He felt the tip of her tongue on his lips and he opened for her. She licked into his mouth, nibbled at his lips. She tasted like vodka and heat and something faintly sweet, and Barry knew it was her flavor he wanted on his tongue for the rest of his life.

  
When she moaned against him, Barry felt it in his entire body. His feet planted more firmly into the floor, his thighs jumped underneath her, his dick twitched in his pants. His hands found her waist. She felt small in his arms, his hands covering her back and her belly.

  
It wasn’t until she ran her fingers into his hair that he pulled his mouth away from hers. They were both breathing hard, chests heaving.

  
“Mr. Allen, I’m so...” She jumped up from his lap, shaking her head, the fingers of one hand touching her lips. “I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t...”

  
“Iris.”

  
She stopped when he stood, moving toward her.

  
“Don’t.”

  
He reached for her hand and she let him, allowing herself to be pulled closer to him. When he kissed her again, it was slowly, in exploration. He took the time to learn her mouth, to learn what made her sigh. He tongued and he nipped and he licked, pulling soft moans from her, the sounds harmonic. His fingers itched to touch her, to know what she felt like, so he pushed her back by the waist until she bumped into the desk. He played at the hem of her dress with one hand, the other holding her steady at her hip. Her skin was like silk to him, soft and elegant. The dress bunched against her thigh in one side, as his hand slid higher and higher. He broke away from her mouth and kissed at her cheek, her jaw, a spot behind her ear that made her mewl so he did that again and again.

  
“Barry,” she said, and it was a whisper, so low that he probably wouldn’t have heard it if they hadn’t been so close, if she hadn’t been wrapped around him, her fingers tugging at the hair at the nape of his neck, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. Barry had only heard her say his name once and to hear it again, like that... Barry couldn’t even think anymore.

  
He moved even lower, placed open mouth kisses on her neck, at her collarbone, at the top of her right breast, at the top of her left. All the while his hands moved, making wide circles on the smooth skin of her thighs, both hands at the hem of her dress now, pushing up. Her hips were uncovered for him, the dress settling at her waist.

  
It was she who pulled away this time, and her fingers curled around his neck.

  
“You called me Barry,” he mumbled against her ear.

  
Her chuckle shook her entire body. “Anyone who kisses like that deserves to be called whatever he wants.”

  
He smiled against her skin. “You have no idea how much I’ve been wanting to do kiss you.”

  
She hummed, a low sound in her throat. Then she leaned back so that she could look into his face. Her bee stung lips were kiss swollen, her lipstick smeared, her bright eyes blown.

  
“Yeah?”

  
He nodded mutely.

  
“What else, Mr. Allen, have you been thinking about me?”

  
He let his eyes run the length of her, having to drag them away from her cleavage.

  
“So many things,” he said. He pinned her body to the desk and she spread her legs just a little. He pushed into her. He was half hard on her thigh. “Like how the very first time I saw you, I discovered I had a glasses kink.”

He reached at her thighs, right below her buttocks. He gripped some of the round flesh and pulled her up until she was seated on the desk.

“And then there are thoughts of you on this desk.”

Because of their last move, her dress was at her waist. And Barry could see hints of the lacy black panties she was wearing.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” He placed his hands on either of her thighs and spread her legs.

“Sometimes, it was you bent over a desk, a counter,” he grinned, “the refrigerator.”

He pulled at her hips until just her legs were hanging over the curve of the desk.

“And today, it was you in this fucking dress.”

“Yeah?” Her voice was breathy. He pushed her thighs further apart and then she was finally open for him.  Her panties were but a mere wisp of fabric that just barely covered her and Barry could smell the heady scent of her arousal.

“God, yes,” he said.  “When I walked in this morning, I couldn’t not stare at you. You were doing something with that coffee maker and I think I stood in the door for nearly ten minutes, picturing you out of this dress.”

He made patterns on her thighs and her hands fell behind her on the desk. He trailed up until he was tracing the edges of her panties.

“Barry.”

“I had a dream about you once,” he said, almost conversationally. “You were spread out for me just like this.”

He heard the sharp intake of breath as he curled his fingers around the fabric and slowly pulled them down her legs. He made a show of stuffing the panties in his pockets and Iris licked her lips. He took one finger and ran it down the middle of her in a single, sure swipe, and her hips bucked. He did it again, another time, and then he pressed into her. She was warm around his finger, unbelievably wet, and Barry thought that he might be able to find heaven inside of her.

He bent until his face was level with her sex and he pulled out of her, licking her essence off his finger.

“Barry,” she moaned, catching his eyes.

“You taste so good,” he told her, a little salty but sweet too.

He leaned back in, savoring her scent, and then he put his mouth on her. He licked a stripe through the center of her, one time, two times, and then he tongue kissed her lips. She was so responsive to him, chanting his name in a song, “Barry, Barry, Barryyy,”; swearing every time he touched his tongue to clit, “Fuck, shit, _goddamnit.”_ He pushed two fingers into her, scissoring inside her body, gathering her slick, and when Barry wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked, Iris screamed out his name so loudly, he wondered if people outside might hear her.

When she came, Barry licked her through it, until she pushed him away, chanting “fuck, no more, that was good, fuck” and he stood to his full height staring down at her. She looked so beautiful like this, spread out on his desk, her hair a mess, her dress wrinkled, thighs wet from her orgasm. The sight caused Barry to harden to full mass and he palmed himself through his pants.

Iris noted the gesture and she pushed herself to a sitting position. She crooked her finger and he moved toward her, standing between her thighs. She grabbed at his tie, loosening it, until she pulled it out from around his neck. She started unbuttoning his shirt.

“You know, Mr. Allen, you aren’t the only one with fantasies.”

“No?”

She shook her head and continued unbuttoning.

“No. I thought about your hair, what it’d feel like between my fingers as you licked into me.”

She smirked up at him and pushed his shirt off of his shoulders. She pulled his under shirt off too, and Barry tossed the shirt aside.

“And these fucking moles,” she said passionately. She fingered at the ones on his neck, his chest. “I always wondered if you had them all over your body.”

He was still as she touched him, his small hands setting him on fire. She trailed her nails down his chest, pausing to flick at each nipple, circling his belly button, tapping a design just above the top of his pants. He sucked in a breath, his stomach clenching under her fingers.

“Iris.” His breath came out shaky and when she went to unbutton his pants, Barry made a low groaning sound in the back of his throat.

“I wondered what you’d look like,” she spoke softly, pulling the zipper down slowly. “If you’d be long and thin like the rest of you, or if you’d be thick enough to fill me up.”

Barry swallowed.

She fingered the edge of his briefs and then pulled them down over his hips. His dick sprang free, hard and heavy.

“I wondered what you’d feel like in my mouth.”

“Fuck, Iris,” Barry swore. “You’re trying to kill me, I know.”

And if that didn’t kill him, surely the sight of her falling to her knees and wrapping her lips around him would do the trick. There was no preamble with her. There was no teasing. She took him all the way in and pulled out, took him all the way in and pulled out, and the feel of her hot tongue and wet mouth was indescribable. She wrapped her fingers around the base of him and started a rhythm, the twist and turn of her hand and her tongue licking at the head of him and then sucking him. She hollowed her cheeks going down, her free hand tickling his balls. Barry’s hips lurched and he fisted the air, needing something to hold on to.

“Iris,” he groaned. “Fuck, Iris, you…”

With a reluctance that hinted at his true strength, he grabbed her and pulled her up.

“Barry?”

His kissed her abruptly, hard, wrapping his arms around her waist. He needed her, needed to know what it felt like to be wrapped inside her, so he stepped back and told her,

“Take off this dress.”

His tone made no room for an argument so she did, throwing the dress to the side when it was off her body. Her bra came off next, a lacy thing that matched her panties, and then she was wonderfully, gloriously naked in front of him.

Once he had kissed her, he had known that everything about what they were doing would exceed his expectations. Still, he wasn’t ready for the sight of a naked Iris. She was dazzling and Barry wondered how he got to be standing there witnessing her like this, wondered what deities he should be thanking.

He wanted to tongue her breasts, trace the circle of her chocolate areolas. He wanted to hold on to her by the deep curve of her waist as he pushed in and out of her. He wanted to bite and nip and suck at her belly, at her thighs, until he left his mark. He wanted to make sure she remembered him; wanted to grip her thighs as he stared at her gorgeous brown skin wrapped around his paler waist and he wanted to do it hard enough that he left his print. And he would. If she let him, he would fuck her and love her every single day of his life.

But right at that moment, he wanted to be full in her, wanted to make his dreams come true by bending her over his desk. So he placed his hand on her belly and turned her around, putting her hands on the desk. She went willingly and after kicking his shoes and pants all the way off, he followed.

He kissed her cheek, her neck, planted open mouth kisses against her spine and Iris arched her back, pushing her ass more firmly against him.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, his hands between her thighs to spread them. He had to move away to get a condom, but once he sheathed himself, he settled one hand on the curve of her hip and the other he used to line himself up with her. He eased inside.

Nothing in the world was like this. In his 29 years, Barry hadn’t experienced all that much, but he knew without a doubt that there was absolutely nothing in the world that could compare to what it felt like to have Iris’s wet hot sex clutching his dick, her round ass nestled on his belly.

He started to move. He stroked her slowly, long strokes that pulled nearly all the way out before he pushed back into her to the hilt.

“G-god, B-b-barry,” she stuttered when he hit something good, her body fluttering around him. She felt like silk around him and he felt a quivering in his stomach. The pleasure was everywhere: in the tightening of his abdomen, in the power of his hips as he pounded her, in the palms of his hands as he gave into the obscene desire to smack her ass, once, again. She liked that, if the way channel _flooded_ him was any indication. She bent lower, arched her back a little more, and he went deeper.

“ _Shit,_ Iris.”

“You feel so good,” she sang. “So goddamn good.”

Her orgasm was shocking, to both of them it seemed. One minute he was pulling her back onto him by her hips, reveling in the wet slap of her butt meeting his thighs, and the next, her sex was _gripping_ him, clenching and unclenching as she exploded around him. The feeling spurred his own climax and he stilled as his dick pulsed and he came into the condom.

“That was,” Iris started and then she gave a soft little giggle. “Damn, Mr. Allen.”

He hummed in agreement, running his hands along her spine. She was slightly sweaty and the room smelled like honey and _them_ and Barry wanted to grin, he was so happy in that moment.

It was a moment before he pulled out of her. That was when it was supposed to be weird, a little awkward. But Barry disposed of the condom and Iris grabbed paper towels from the kitchen area to clean them up as best she could. And all the while, they exchanged soft smiles and sly looks and Barry suddenly wanted nothing more than for her to be wrapped around him again.

When they had put their clothes back on, Iris was looking around on the floor, as if searching for something.

“Where are my panties?” she mumbled to herself.

“Um…” He touched at the fabric in his pocket

She looked up sharply. “Allen, give me my underwear.”

“You know what? I don’t think I will.”

Her eyes narrowed and she stalked forward. Barry stepped back, tripping on a chair and falling back into to it.

“Give me my underwear,  Mr. Allen.”

His lips quirked up. “Come get them.”

He patted at his lap and she obliged, crawling onto him and straddling him. His arms wrapped around her automatically.

“Can I  have them back now?”

“Hmmm.” Instead of answering, he grabbed her chin and brought her lips to his. She responded automatically, kissing him back with fervor.

They forgot about those panties for a while.

 

************

When Cisco walked into the office on Monday morning, Barry was standing behind Iris as she stood at the coffee maker. She was attempting to make coffee, but Barry had his hands on her waist and his mouth on her neck, so she really wasn’t actually making anything.

“Barry!” Cisco yelled.

Barry jumped away from Iris to see Cisco at the office door with his hands over his eyes.

“This is why I said don’t sleep with the secretary.”

“He told you not to sleep with me?” Iris asked, placing a hand on his arm.

“Yeah. Something about me being your boss and that’s probably not a good idea or something.”

“And it’s not,” Cisco said, “But since you went ahead and did it, we need rules.”

“Alright,” Barry agreed. “But Cisco, you can uncover your eyes.”

“No,” he said. “I cannot.”

Iris laughed softly into Barry’s arm and he sighed, a sense of contentment falling over him.

They had gone home together on Friday night and had only left each other’s company the night before, when Iris had insisted on going home to shower in her own bathroom and sleep in her own bed. That had worried Barry, that maybe this was going to be just a weekend for them: three days of the best sex Barry’s ever had--he got a little bit hard every time he thought about it--and then they would go back to snarking at one another. Barry couldn’t describe the feeling he got when he thought about it, something like a vice gripping his heart. They had only just had sex, but then they had also laughed in the middle of the night, and ate food together (a lot of it off of the other, but it still counted), and they had even started watching Game of Thrones because somehow neither of them had seen it yet. They couldn’t be just sex then, right, because you didn’t start a show with someone if you didn’t plan on finishing it? Right?

Needless to say, Barry had been a little nervous when he got to the office that morning. Iris had been there already, in a royal blue wrap dress. She had smiled at him and said,

“Good morning, Mr. Allen,” the tone of her voice _just_ on the other side of flirtatious. She had stood up from her desk and walked over to him. Barry had gotten a little bit distracted by her legs in those nude pumps, but then she had stopped in front of him and patted his chest. Then she had grabbed the neck of his red silk tie.

“How is it that it’s not even 9 and your tie is already crooked?”

“I, uh..” his words faltered out when she tugged at his tie to pull him closer.

Her eyes raked over his face and she bit at her bottom lip, not holding eye contact with him. Something was worrying her.

“Iris?” He grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger, making her hold his stare. “What is it?”

“I missed you last night.”

His heart lurched. “Yeah?”

“Yes. I left because it had dawned on me that this probably isn’t a good idea. You’re my boss and just because you find me attractive doesn’t mean…” She pulled her hand away from his tie. “So I left because I didn’t want to get sucked into the idea of us, to get sucked into you. But I got into bed and you weren’t there and I wanted you to be there but this isn’t… and I don’t…”

“Iris.” He moved his hand to her cheek. “I missed you too. I don’t know what this is either, but I know that I want to see.”

She smiled. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Then she had pressed a kiss to his mouth before pulling away. “I’m going to make coffee.”

And Barry had followed after her because that was probably what he would be doing for the rest of his life anyway so he decided he might as well get some practice in.

Cisco had come in at that moment and covered his eyes and he still wouldn’t look at them.

“First and most important rule,” he said, “is _none_ of this in this office.” He took one hand and waved erratically in their direction.

“Okay,” Barry responded.

“Anything else?” Iris asked.

Cisco seemed to think about it. “Actually, no. Just none of that.”

Still without looking at the couple, Cisco turned and walked into the vortex, shutting the door loudly behind him.

Now that he was gone, Barry turned back to Iris and leaned in to kiss her. She stepped back.

“What?”

“Didn’t you just hear what Cisco said? No PDA in the office.”

“But?”

“Go sit down and start work. I’ll bring you coffee in a bit.”

“But?”

She shot a glance at Cisco’s door before taking a step closer to him. She placed a warm hand on his chest and leaned up to whisper in his ear. “Later, I’ll come over and I’ll let you do that thing you wanted to try.”

Barry’s eyes widened. “The thing with the rope?”

“Yes, Mr. Allen,” she purred.

And with one last pat on his chest, she walked away from him, hips swaying.

Oh yeah, Barry thought. She had definitely come to change his life.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to this point, thank you for reading.  
> I'm gon' be honest. I have no clue what this was supposed to be. This is the result of being stuck in a car for 16 hours to go visit my parents. The idea came to me and I just wrote it all out. I do hope you enjoyed.. kinda. I swear, this couple is driving me insane.  
> By the way, Happy Holidays, all!


End file.
